Happiness in herbs Top Ten to grow

Kim Stoddart outlines her pick of the most flavour some, resilient best for your smallholding biodiversity-boosting, vegetable garden....

If I had to only grow one type of produce I think it would have to be herby. So much flavour, wonderful feel-good aromas, many healthinducing properties, and leaves guaranteed to bring oodles of excitement and culinary opportunity to the kitchen.

As if that wasn't enough, most herbs are also brilliant for pollinators and many wildlife, many are dead easy to grow, standing firm over winter and dutifully returning year on year out with little to no effort from you at all. These more resilient rascals afford fantastic little-fuss edible harvests which are hard to beat. With the right herbs, one plant has the potential to grow an incredibly long way so it's an investment well worth making.

MINT

Speaking of rascals, this delicious herb is notorious for its cheeky spreading tendencies. It's certainly built for survival as it has an ability to grow far and wide given half the opportunity. It actually prefers less fertile growing conditions so for reliable, more controllable harvests consider growing mint in wilder areas of your plot where it can spread without causing mischief.

For example I let some grow in a herb, gravel rockery near my polytunnels which provides a lovely wildlife attracting scent by my undercover growing space and helps prevent mint from taking over. Wild areas lend themselves well to the growing of mint and it can root well within gravel and stone laden areas for easy pickings.

If you plan to grow some in pots do ensure that you add lots of top soil or leaf mould and don't make the mixture too rich as mint prefers more barren growing conditions and the ability to grow a little wild.